Not Alone
by JeweledSiamese
Summary: Puck is alone, until he meets a fey, a fey who is not Summer, Winter, or Iron. Basically what happened to Puck after the ending of the Iron Knight. Puck & OC
1. Chapter 1

She ran. Like a deer, swift and light on her feet. She ran with purpose, the kind of fast pace you only keep when you know that survival is on the line. Dodging trees and plants, racing through the twisting unpredictable part of the Nevernever known as the Briars.

You could be sure to find every single monster-under-your-bed, demon-of-your-nightmare type of creature lurking somewhere in the Briars, but what was after her was something that would make any one of those creatures flee in panic.

The area surrounding her was silent, but she knew that it was there, watching her, waiting in amusement for the moment when she would trip on a vine, or fall to the ground from exhaustion. And then it would be upon her.

He was alone. An unusual set of circumstances for Robin Goodfellow, Puck, as he was known to most. First he'd been with Meghan, Grimalkin, and Ironhorse, trying to find the Scepter of the Seasons, stolen by the Iron Fey. Then he'd been with Meghan and Ash, trying to find the false king of the Iron Fey. And then he'd been with ice boy again, with Grimalkin, the Wolf, and Ariella, trying to earn Ash a soul. But there wasn't a need for him with any of those people now. His closest friends were gone. Ariella had died, giving Ash the chance to be with Meghan, and now Meghan and Ash were married and didn't need or want him around anymore.

Puck sighed. Funny, how it could still hurt, even after he'd already resigned himself to the fact that Meghan had chosen Ash. He looked up at his surroundings. The Briars were close, he knew. He could be sure to find something to fight in there. It might feel good to hit something.

Before he could make a decision however, something came bursting out of the line of trees in front of him, colliding with Puck and knocking them both onto the ground. It took him a moment to focus but when he did he realized that the thing was a girl, a fey, but it was impossible to tell from which court. She had long brown hair, not the traditional white blonde of Summer or the black of Winter, and there were no bursts of cold air, nor any sudden warmth.

Her violet eyes focused on his bright green ones, and for a moment, they stayed there. He smirked, and with that, she leapt to her feet and whirled around, searching through the trees she'd just appeared from. Seeming to find nothing, she turned back around and began to quickly walk away in the opposite direction. "Wait!" Puck grabbed her wrist. "Are you alright?"

She stared past him, still searching the forest, before saying, "Fine". "What're doing in the Briars? Were you lost?" This time, she turned her complete attention to him before answering, "In a manner of speaking". He regarded her for a moment, sweeping his eyes up and down the length of her, and then said, "What's your name?"

She paused for a moment, seeming to consider whether or not to give him her true name. "Aeryina", she finally said, "And you?" Puck raised his eyebrows, surprised. It wasn't often that someone had to ask for his name; his signature smirk had become something of a legend in and of itself. "Puck."

_**Finished the Iron Knight, was heartbroken about Puck being alone, was immediately on the computer writing an alternate ending. That's pretty much how this story came about. Yeah, I hate it when my favorite characters end up either dying or alone so I'm constantly writing different endings. **_


	2. Chapter 2

The questions filled Puck's mind to the point where he thought it might burst. Not because of any information she'd given him; she told him almost nothing. But because of what she hadn't said.

Puck was observant, he saw how every so often she turned around for a moment, and pricked her long ears, before continuing to walk forward. How she held her shoulders tense, and her legs poised, as if she thought at any moment she might have to sprint forward.

Quite obviously she'd been being chased by something. Of course, in the Briars, there were any number of monsters she could have stumbled upon. But most of those were your standard dragons, wyverns, and kelpies, monsters that almost every fey knew how to deal with. Puck could tell that Aeryina was smart.

It shone through her eyes in the calculating glance that she looked at their surroundings with, like she had already figured out the best possible things she could use as weapons, the best places to hide, the things she'd need should survival suddenly be on the line. And she probably had. Even more than that though, something else took up residence in her brilliant purplish eyes as well; fear.

The type of fear that couldn't be inspired by something as simple as a hobyah, or something of the like. No, that kind of all-consuming paranoia came from something else. But what, Puck couldn't tell.

And surprisingly, he wanted to. His curiosity was piqued, something about this girl made him want to know more about her. About why she was in the Briars, about why she had a glamour about her that he couldn't identify, and most of all, about why and what she was so afraid of.

Aeryina didn't want to give her name to the boy with the green eyes, but maybe he could be of some help to her. After all, she was lost in unfamiliar terrain with _it _after her. She almost laughed at herself then, how she had stopped calling it anything but _it _in her mind. Like, if she thought of it with its proper name, it would attack. And Aeryina knew from past experience that if that happened she wouldn't be able to withstand it again. No one else had, anyway. She shuddered.

Even now, the memory refused to be far from the forefront of her mind. Fey running as quickly as possible, though knowing they'd never be quick enough. Screaming, the screaming that went on for what felt like hours, even though it had to have been only minutes. And the darkness, the neverending darkness, was the worst part It seemed to stretch on for miles, like the sun had never existed at all, but for a pair of glowing white eyes.

Aeryina shook her head, refusing to let herself think about it again. But she didn't forget to do a quick turn around and listen for a moment, before she asked, "Where are we?" Puck looked at her strangely for a moment before answering, "We're in, or I guess, we're outside of the Briars right now. What you just came out of", he gestured back to the now far-off forest-looking area. "How did you end up in there again? I don't think you said", Puck said, arching an eyebrow.

"No, I didn't". Aeryina considered her options. 1) Tell no one and likely get killed without anyone having known in the first place. 2) Tell Puck the entirety of her situation, hope that he could help and hope that he didn't die with her.

But since she knew it was dangerous for him to be around her right now, she chose neither of her imaginary options, instead choosing to reveal a limited amount of the truth. "I wasn't lost. Or, I was, I guess, but that wasn't really my problem".

Aeryina paused for a moment. "Can I trust you with this?" She stared at him, looking hard into his eyes. Puck stopped as well, before saying, "Yes".


	3. Chapter 3

"Obviously, I'm not exactly like you", Aeryina began, pointing out the differences in their glamours, his warm and bright, hers, strange and mixed, hard to read, with nothing exactly standing out except for the surge of energy surrounding her, like electricity, filling the air around with light.

"Really? That wasn't obvious at all to _me_". She stared at Puck, eyes narrowed. "By all means give me a reason to stop". He raised his hands, a hint of a smile still dancing in his eyes. "Sorry. Continue".

"I didn't go through the Briars from inside…this", Aeryina said gesturing around to their surroundings. "The Nevernever", Puck supplied. "I'd been through what you call the Briars a few times before, just never through the door that connected to here". "So where _did _you come through then?"

"There's an infinite amount of doors that connect through to the fey and mortal worlds; one of those connects to mine. It's not too different from here, when I got through to the other side, I thought I was there. But when I saw you, your glamour, I realized how different it actually is".

"Hate to point this out, but you haven't really told me anything yet except that there's worlds outside the Nevernever, which I already knew", Puck said.

"I'm getting there. My world is inhabited by a different kind of fey than here. My glamour is made up of pure spirit. We have souls, which I've gathered is not the case here. Our life is what gives us our magic, we're sustained by the life around us".

Aeryina paused, waiting to see what Puck's reaction to this would be. "So, why did you come here?" he asked. "If you were never curious enough to come through before, why now?"

Her eyes clouded a bit, as though there were a part of the story coming that she wished she could edit out. "The spirit fey were a small group. We've been around for as long as there's been humans. Over time, our amount dwindled and when I was born there were less then a hundred of us".

"We're strong but… Something came after us. Something that we'd never seen before, that we thought had long since died out, that we were unprepared to fight". She took a deep breath and then continued.

"Everyone was killed. At least, I'm almost sure that everyone was. It's possible that the few that weren't disappeared through the Briars. But it seems unlikely since it chose to follow _me_ through. That's what I was running from. And it's still here somewhere, watching me, waiting for me".

Puck watched as Aeryina tucked a strand of her long caramel brown hair behind her long pointed ears, and look up at him, violet eyes shining, not with tears, but simply with sadness.

He thought about it for a moment, how she was alone in the world without anyone, everyone she'd ever known dead. He realized how not so different they were. After all, he was alone too. His friends didn't need or want him around. And it felt like complete shit.

But he pulled himself out of what was sure to be a very long and satisfying pity party to think about the more important piece of information she'd just told him. "What is it? The thing after you?" he asked.

She pulled ahead of him, walking an almost imperceptible bit and then turned to face him, looking straight into his eyes. "Stay away from the shadows. Stay in the light. There's not much else in the way of advice that I can offer". "But"- "I know what you're going to say, but I'm not going to tell you anything else. At least, not right now. I do need your help though. There's one person who rules here, correct?" "Two actually. One in the Winter Court, one in the Summer. Summer's nicer though". "That's what you are. I mean, you couldn't possibly be anything else", she said, arching one eyebrow.

"Do you think the Summer king would help me? To… to fight it, or to at least give me some assistance in finding out if anyone survived, to see if there's any possibility of saving my home?" "Possibly. I don't know, there's always a chance Oberon would say it's a lost cause, that it's not worth putting effort into when there's a greater chance that we'd lose".

"But there's a chance he'd help, however small?" "Yeah, there's a chance".


End file.
